Okay, so smoking cigars and spending money on bejeweled accessories for them are both pretty gauche, but that's what made these products so fascinating to me. Ysenberg specializes in the design and production of high value accessories in the world of cigars. Their point, in their words, is to realize and arrange the individual wishes of the customer.

That said, they have two lines of products; Ysenbands (actual custom personalized gold or gold plated sterling silver and gemstone cigar bands with leather accents) and Ysentrays (cigar ash trays made with gold, gold leaf, gold accents and crystal or dichroic glass).

YSENBANDS

Some Ysenband customers include the King of Benin and Chief of the Ritz in Paris:

YSENTRAYS- crystal and gold leaf ashtrays

Ysenberg items come with a certificate with registered individual numbers on all their products. Their products can be found at high end cigar and smoke shops all over Europe. Go here to find distributors.

The Motorola AURA phone distinguishes itself from other mobile phones with some very unique features in addition to being pretty darn pretty to look at.

The world's first to have a round, 16 million color sapphire crystal display screen, the stainless steel phone also has a fixed focus 2 megapixel camera, quad band internal antennae, EDGE technology, video capture and video playing capabilities, bluetooth, USB high speed, multimedia and standby talk time up to 400 hours. It even comes with the following game apps: RealDice Chess, RealDice Backgammon.

AURA™ by Motorola is a timeless, classically designed device that delivers a sensory experience that is second-to-none for those with refined taste. Combining an exquisite interface with superb craftsmanship inspired by high-end watches, AURA breaks convention and re-establishes artistry in the design and manufacturing of mobile devices. From the moment an AURA owner picks up his or her device they embark on a journey of discovery.

• not available in black.

An Exquisitely Performing Device, Designed to the Highest Standards

Drawing on inspiration, materials and techniques from luxury jewelers, AURA begins with the world's first 16 million color, circular display with more colors and sharper resolution than has ever been seen on a Motorola phone. The product's richness can literally be felt, from the weight of its stainless steel housing and the textures and patterns chemically-etched into its surface, to its Grade 1, 62-carat sapphire crystal lens, one of the most scratch-resistant materials on earth.

Yiying Lu is the artist behind the fast-becoming world wide known Twitter Fail Whale, the friendly aqua blue, white and orange image that appears on the social networking or microblog site, twitter.com when their servers are down.

above: original fail Whale artist, the adorable Yiying Lu

As you can imagine, any icon that symbolizes 'failure' quickly gets mocked or altered as a result of creative frustration- and too many artists with cyber downtime on their hands. There have been contests like the Fail Whale Pail Ale label contest, there are flickr groups and you can buy "official" Fail Whale tee shirts and products on Zazzle.

What I wanted to share with you are some of the creative works inspired by the Fail Whale from fine art and cupcakes to lego versions and real tattoos. As well as some of the beer bottle label entries for The Fail Whale Pale Ale label contest. While there are hundreds, probably thousands, of funny 'modified' Fail Whales out there, here are just a few of the clever, talented and amusing homages and take-offs I enjoyed.

Believe it or not, Yiying was not paid directly for the image of the sweet looking whale being lifted from the ocean, tethered by birds - she originally posted the image to iStockPhoto.com where the Twitter people fond it, purchased it and turned into a cultural icon. The illustration blog, Drawn, interviewed the artist, which you can read here.

Yiying Lu is a full-time artist who runs her own illustration and graphic design studio. She is also a design lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia.
her personal siteher flickr photostream